Having gained an upwardly revised 5.9 percent in February, the pace of new single-family home sales in the U.S. ticked up another 4.5 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted rate of 692,000 sales which is 3.0 percent above the pace of sales at the same time last year.

But the median sale price of those homes which sold last month dropped 4.0 percent to $302,700, which is 9.7 percent lower versus the same time last year ($335,400) and the lowest median sale price since February of 2017 ($298,000).

At the same time, the inventory of new single-family homes for sale across the county slipped by a revised 0.3 percent to 344,000 at the end of last month but is now 15.8 percent higher versus the same time last year, representing 6.0 months of supply (versus 5.3 in March of 2018).

And out West, the seasonally adjusted pace of new single-family home sales totaled 176,000 in March, up 6.7 percent from February but 4.3 percent lower versus the same time last year, with 20 percent more new homes now on the market (95,000) versus the same time last year (74,000).